RezBook Hopes to Become the New OpenTable

December 13, 2010

OpenTable is getting some competition in the online reservations game from RezBook, a new reservation and table management system that uses the iPad (because you can’t be competitive in this day and age without an iPad).

The New York Times is reporting that some restaurateurs are fed up with the high fees associated with OpenTable, which charges $1 per diner in addition to monthly fees, for a total of about $635 per month.

RezBook, which is owned by UrbanSpoon, though, isn’t that much cheaper. It also charges $1 per diner, though it imposes no setup costs and charges a flat monthly systems fee per restaurant. But it uses iPads!

The article doesn’t mention other start-ups in the reservations race, like Reservation Genie, Restaurant Row, or Restaurant Reservations, but these tend to be smaller operations and don’t have the clout or market share that UrbanSpoon already does. Still, though, what happened to the days of picking up the phone and making a reservation? Have they totally gone the way of the horse and buggy?